In Shadow, Moving Fast
by Liberty Hoffman
Summary: It was a wonderful, peaceful evening. Until a man with a gun showed up. Shawn and Juliet have to go to drastic lengths to save themselves from an unknown assailant. one shot. slight Shawn and Juliet whump.


There we were, Juliet and I, standing on the pier as the sun set. Seagulls cawed in the twilight and the sound of the waves coming in and out made a dull rushing sound.

"Isn't this just perfect?" I said to Jules.

She smiled. "Yes, just perfect."

Just then, the unmistakable sound of a gun being fired echoed on the water. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"What - " I began, but more gunfire cut me off.

I yanked Jules down, face first on the wet planks, and covered her body with my own. Looking up, I caught sight of a shadowed figure moving toward us out of the darkness.

"Quick!" I whispered in Juliet's ear. "We've got to get in the water."

The moonlight glinted off the gun in the shadowed man's hand and I saw that his finger was on the trigger, ready to shoot. I had no idea who this wack-job was, but I had to protect Juliet.

I slowly rolled to the edge of the dock. There was just enough space to fit under the rail. One last glance at the figure - he was almost upon us.

I wrapped my arm around Juliet, tugging her to the edge of the pier.

"Ready?" I breathed into her ear, flinching when another gunshot echoed, this one closer.

"Yeah." Juliet didn't sound ready, but we had no choice.

Taking a deep breath, and hearing her do the same, I rolled off the pier, Juliet in my arms. The water was colder than I expected and I accidentally inhaled a mouthful of the salty brine. I kicked hard, arm still around Jules, and we surfaced beside the pier. I coughed out some of the water I'd swallowed and gasped a little too loudly. A bullet hit the water much too close for comfort, startling me.

"Quick, under the pier," I coughed.

We went underneath the planks that we'd just recently been standing on and found a pole to cling too. My fingers found purchase on a rusted metal ring embedded in the splintery wood and I guided Juliet's hand onto it beside mine. We clung there, treading water, listening to the boards above us creak with the footsteps of the gunman. It was obvious he knew we were in the water, why else would he have shot over the rail? Just then, I heard Juliet gasp.

"Shawn," She whispered, fear evident in her tone. "The tide's coming in."

And so it was. The water around us was getting deeper at an alarming rate. I was instantly reminded of a cold February night a little over a year ago when I had been under this very pier, trying to save Abigail. The tide had been coming in then, too.

Another bullet hit the water. I thought I heard someone yell something, but I wasn't sure. The water was already to our shoulders and climbing fast.

Juliet tensed beside me. "Shawn..."

"Hang on," I whispered, holding her tighter. She was starting to shake from the cold water. "We'll make it out, I promise."

"He's still shooting, Shawn," Juliet said looking around disparately.

"SBPD! Drop your weapon!"

The familiar voice of Lassie broke the silence and I felt a little less scared. Once Lassie had the man in handcuffs, we could get out of here. I wanted to call out to Lassie to make him aware of out presence, but I knew it would risk us getting shot if the gunman knew where to find us. But it soon became clear that it wasn't going to be so simple.

"Drop your weapon!" Lassie yelled again.

"No, you drop yours!" Shouted the gunman.

The tide had risen to our necks. It may have been a risk to go out from our hiding place, but if we didn't get out of here we were going to drown.

"We've got to get out of here!" I gasped. "On the count of three, We'll go under."

I felt Juliet nod against my chest.

"One, two - three!"

We sucked in a last good lungful of air before ducking under the water. I was already exhausted, but I forced my aching limbs to propel me sideways I felt Juliet's legs kicking beside mine and I tightened my grip on her waist.

I knew that if we surfaced too soon, we'd hit the underside of the pier. I opened my eyes, ignoring the stinging of the salty water, and looked up. To my relief, We were almost clear of the pier.

A couple more kicks and then the only way was up. Just as my lungs were about to burst, our heads broke the surface and I gulped the cool night air in greedily. Juliet was gasping beside me.

I wanted nothing more than to stop moving, but we ha to get to the bank. Jules was still coughing and I began to wonder if she'd inhaled water like I had.

Stroke, kick. Stroke, kick.

"Shawn!"

Was that Gus calling? I tried to answer back, but I didn't have enough breath to speak.

Stroke, kick. Stroke kick.

"Shawn! Juliet!"

I was vaguely aware that someone was splashing toward us.

"O'Hara!" That was Lassie's voice.

Juliet was pulled from my arms. I felt my knees give way, but two strong hands caught me before I could fall.

"Almost there, Shawn," Gus said in my ear. "Just a little further."

Through my mostly closed eyelids, I saw a little strip of sand a little ways ahead. The beach. I stumbled onto it and fell to my knees. Lassie and Juliet scrambled up beside us and Juliet sat heavily on the ground beside me.

"Are you guys okay?" Gus asked.

Lassie glared at me. "What in the name of sweet justice did you do to my partner?"

I was still gasping. "Guy...shooting at us...had to jump...didn't wanna be shot..."

Lassie's eyebrows went up. "Holden? He was shooting at you?"

I looked at him quizzically. "You mean...the guy...you were chasing?"

Lassie nodded. Then he looked at me. "So he was shooting and you went under the..." I saw a look of understanding begin to come over his face.

Juliet looked up. "Please don't be mad, Carlton. Shawn saved my life."

Lassie nodded. "I can see that now."

A few minutes later, we watched Lassie drive off toward the station from the front window of the Psych office. He was taking Holden into custody at the police station. Juliet and I were wrapped in blankets, sitting on the sofa in the front room while Gus made tea in the kitchenette. Juliet turned to me.

"That was quick thinking, Shawn, on the pier. Did your dad teach you that?"

I blinked. "My dad? No. He yelled at me the time I invented that stunt. Of course, I wasn't dodging bullets that time."

_**-1987-**_

"C'mon, Spencer, You and I both know you can't hide forever!"

Stevie Dobson. The bane of my summer camp existence And one of the many, many reasons I hated going there. Of course Gus was sleeping in bed, oblivious to what was going on. I lay in the dark, my face pressed into the damp wooden planks of the dock. Stevie was coming at me through the darkness. I'd run out of places to run. he had me cornered.

"When I find you, I'm gonna get you good!" Stevie shouted.

It had been just my luck to bump into him in the mess hall that morning, making him spill milk all over his shirt.

He was almost upon me. I had inched closer and closer to the edge of the dock as if that would hide me. But then I had an idea. I slid off the dock, landing in the water, and surfacing beside one of the poles. I got on the other side of the pole, under the dock. The water was up to my neck and I reached up along the pole with my fingers, trying to find something to hold onto. I could hear Stevie stumbling along muttering about all the tings he was going to do to me when he found me. My searching fingers finally found a purchase on the pole, higher up, but when I pulled myself up to get myself further out of the water, I lost my hold and slid down. My chest scraped against something sharp that was embedded in the pole and I cried out. My shirt got tangled on the pole and I hung there, my head hanging back, water up to my neck.

The upside-down face of Stevie came into view over the edge of the dock. He began to laugh.

"This is even better than I'd planned to do to you, Spencer. Any other day, I might pull you out and sock you in the face, but tonight, I'll just leave you."

His face disappeared.

I wanted so badly to yell mean things at him, but it was all I could do just to breath. I struggled against my shirt, but it was no use. I was stuck. I managed to get out a scream here and there between gasps for air, but The dock was too far away from the cabins for anyone to hear my feeble cries.

I hung there all night and into a good part of the morning until the camp councilors finally ran out of places to look and came to the dock to check to see if there were any missing canoes that I might have paddled away in. I was shivering horribly by then from the night and the cold water and I was covered in scrapes from my attempts to get free.

"Hypothermia!? At summer camp?" Dad fumed on the way home from the hospital. "Only you could manage that, Shawn."

"It wouldn't have happened if Stevie hadn't been chasing me," I sulked, staring out the window.

Dad had been at me for fifteen minutes already.

"Shawn, you could have died last night. You've got to think before you do these things."

I sighed. "What if I was being chased by a bad guy? If he had a gun and wanted to shoot me and the only way that I could hide was to hide under a dock?"

Dad sighed. "That's never gonna happen, Shawn."


End file.
